How To Be Good at FimFiction · 3:06am Aug 25th, 2015
On Bad Horse’s blog post about BronyCon, a comment by Titanium Dragon led Applejinx to come up with a new kind of measure for FiMfic users. Here’s how it works:
You look at the number of followers you have. Then you look at how many people follow each of your followers, and add up any numbers that are higher than your total followers. So, for example, I have 1463 followers. My followers who have more followers than that are: bats, Soundslikeponies, Wanderer D, Hoopy McGee, Cold in Gardez, Art Inspired, Vengeful Spirit, Bronystories, Tchernobog. That gives me total of 20,419.
My score is not interesting. The score that’s interesting is Themaskedferret. Ferret has never published a story on her account. She has, over time, attracted 156 followers. But many of her followers have more followers than that, to the tune of about 60,090 (as of two weeks ago.) This includes folks like Wanderer D, shortskirts&explosions, Pegasus Rescue Brigade, The Decendant, and Blueshift.
Basically, Ferret is a Pony Everypony Should Know. But she didn’t get there via musical montage. She got there by being an EqD prereader, a reviewer for Seattle’s Angels, a good editor, and active and friendly in comments all over the site and various skype chats.
“Networking” is a word that turns a lot of people off. It often brings to mind people in business suits pretending to like each other and making boring small talk before handing out business cards. And a lot of the time, that’s probably what it is. But that’s not what it means. Really, networking just means trying to get to know people in the hopes that you might be able to help each other in the future. In other words: Make some friends.
Networking Fail.
If you’re a writer, or an editor, or someone who starts a new group or wants to hold a contest, or even just a reader who wants to be up on the most interesting new authors or fics, you’re going to need help from other people on FimFic. And FimFic is a network of other readers and writers and editors who might need your help. The more connections to that network you have, the more successful you will be, and the more you can help your friends be successful.
I made a list in my BronyCon Advanced Writing Panel post of how to make these connections, but I’m going to go into some more detail here on where to find people, who to look for, and what to do when you find them.
First, an important note: Not everyone needs to be, or should be, connected to the same people. You’re looking for people who seem interesting to you, whatever your interest might be. If you focus on that, rather than follower count or story popularity, you will end up with friends. And friends will always been more helpful to you than someone whose ass you’re kissing when you don’t really care about them.
So use these tips wisely.
Follow people who post good stories, of course, but also look to see if people who make smart comments do any blogging, and follow them too.
There is no limit to the number of people you can follow. (Now there is, but it's in the thousands.) I believe there is a limit to the number of people you can follow in a day, so if you’ve just now realized that EVERYONE ON FIMFICTION COULD BE YOUR FRIEND… just calm down, Pinkie.
Anyway, since there’s no limit, you lose nothing by following anyone who posts anything of interest to you. Follow people who post interesting stories. If someone posts an interesting comment, or puts a lot of stories in groups you like, or follows a lot of the same people you follow, check them out and see what kind of stories or blogs they post. You’ll probably find some interesting people that way, so follow them.
Don’t let follower count fool you about the quality of person you’re talking to. Some very smart and well connected people have very few followers. On top of that, everyone starts somewhere, including the person you’re considering following. Someday you might be able to brag that you were one of his first followers.
This works the other way, too. Even if you don’t have many followers or published stories, write blog posts about things that interest you. Set up your userpage to show what you do around here; if you read stories, list recommendations, if you participate in groups, show the groups module, if you edit, link to stories you edit. And make sure your comments on stories or other blogs or groups are representing you well: explain what you’re thinking, spellcheck, write in complete sentences. Basically, present yourself like a person you would be interested in talking to more.
Join groups where good conversation tends to take place on the message boards.
What groups? It depends on what you’re interested in. There are tons of groups out there based around different subjects, with different levels of communication. You need to find a few where the discussion is interesting to you.
One way to do this can be to look at what groups other people are in. Not everyone has this displayed these days, but some people do, or have notes about what groups they moderate. You can also check out groups your stories (or stories you like) get put into.
When you’ve found a group and are deciding if it’s worth joining, look at the forums. Look at recent activity, sure, but also look at the quality of past activity. A group might go through a slow period if some of the more active participants got busy or ran out of things to talk about, but a new active participant (you, even!) could wake it up. But if it’s never been a place where people did more than roll call threads (“What’s your favorite [thing]?”) or “I’m looking for this fic…” threads, trying to get a conversation going is more likely to fail-- the people who like that kind of thing just might not be around.
Also, remember that you can always turn off story notifications if the group is broad or really active, and you can turn off thread notifications if there’s a lot of white noise (like the previously mentioned roll calls and story searches) between conversations. You’ll still be able to scan the topics of active threads on your dashboard.
Comment on blog posts and stories and in groups, and read other people's comments and respond to them.
Following people and joining groups is just the first step. You also have to interact. That means doing more than reading the story or blog post or topic post for a thread, tossing out a comment, and clicking away.
Before you comment, read what other people have said. Even the long comments. (Especially the long comments, in my opinion.) If one of them covered what you were going to say, try to think of something helpful to add. If you disagree, comment and politely explain why. Even if that person isn’t someone you think you’d get along with, other people will also be reading the comments and might chime in to respond to what you said.
And, once again, bring the level of quality to your comments that you would bring to a conversation with friends. This isn’t to say that any or all of your comments have to be researched essays or witty bon mots-- in fact, a comment of “Okay, you’ve totally lost me. Are you saying X, Y, and Z?” will often seem smarter than throwing another opinion in the pot. You might be asking a question everyone is thinking, or if not someone will probably be happy to explain it to you.
But the important thing is that you’re interacting, you’re becoming a name and user pic that someone will notice. People get to know the users they interact with regularly, and are more likely to take notice when you’re doing something you want people to notice, or remember you when they’re looking for people to be involved in something.
Take part in contests and collabs you're interested in.
If you’re doing it right, these are another great way to get your name out there and meet new people. It’s important, as always, to put your best foot forward on whatever you contribute, but don’t worry too much about being outdone by people you think are better writers. Just being a name on a list that includes them is a good start.
There are other ways to get more out of it, of course. Read and comment on other contributions; review or advertise them on your blog; wish people luck in competitions; comment on the thread or blog post announcing the contest or collab and talk to other people who are entering or thinking about entering-- commiserate about deadlines or celebrate another official entry. Your participation will make it feel like an event, and not only will people notice you, but you’ll be making the experience better for them, and they’ll probably remember that.
If you have the time and inclination, join one of the skype groups that tends to spin off from groups on the site.
A lot of groups have official skype chats, and often if you do end up talking to someone a lot they’ll eventually suggest exchanging skype info. Now, there are totally understandable reasons for avoiding skype, and if it’s not for you there’s nothing wrong with telling people that. But if you can participate, there are ways to get a lot out of it.
First, don’t assume that the first skype chat you’re in will be the one you usually hang out in. People have different styles, and different chats have different styles. But often if you’re friendly and active, people from one chat will invite you to another chat, or message you one on one, and you’ll find people who are more your style.
If you’re not often an active in live chatroom style chats (I’m a slow typist, for example,) small chats of just a couple of people might end up being more your style. If you’re chatting one on one with someone, and they mention a friend that you don’t know who sounds interesting, ask if they’d like to add that person. I’m in several three person chats and I find them much more my speed, and I’ve made some great friends and gotten closer to acquaintances that way.
Leaving chats can sometimes be tricky, socially. If it’s just because it’s too busy and you’re finding every time you log in you have thousands of unread messages, people should understand that, but sometimes it’s because you really disagree with the tone or find a few people really annoying. When that happens, I usually find it easier to just turn off notifications, and set notifications to let me know when someone mentions my name.
Make sure your own comments and blog posts are well thought out and seem intelligent.
I’ve harped on this a few times before, so I’ll cover a slightly different aspect I didn’t bring up:
What you express and how you express yourself online is how people create impressions of you. It’s similar to dress and personal hygiene in the real world, and like those things there are various things that are appropriate at different times and places. It might be fine to wear torn jeans and not brush your hair on a camping trip with friends, but not so much when you’re going on a first date (unless, of course, your jeans are stylishly torn and your hair is carefully messy.)
In the same way, comments that might be hilarious to your friends, your opinions on hot-button political topics, or an i-typed-this-on-my-phone lack of capitalization are fine in some situations, but in others they’ll make you look like an idiot. Learn to look around at other commenters and make sure you’re more or less in line with them in terms of your tone, topics, and level of formatting; and if you’re going for “charmingly rustic” pay attention to reactions to make sure you’re getting the “charming” part, and not making people think “He obviously has no sense; I will never read anything he writes/edits/recommends.”
Try not to make enemies (even if they're idiots, you never know who they're friends with) and generally be polite.
There are two good reasons for this: First of all, FiMfiction is a network, and very few people are an island. Some people have very surprising friends, so even if the person driving you crazy seems like a waste of an internet connection, he might be the one who tells someone you want to be friends with that you’re the the one who was blowing up at him on some forum. That’s not the best introduction.
Second, Georg pointed out when I originally posted this list, the reason those people have unlikely friends is that even someone who seems wrong or rude in one situation can have insights, talents, or hidden depths that they’re not showing right now. If you can handle social situations with tact and a level head, you might get to see those too.
Finally, if you get a little caught up in Righting Wrongs on the Internet, and you think you ticked someone off, apologize. It’s easy, it works, and it makes you look really good. From personal experience: about two and a half years ago, this FlutterDash fan decided to start picking a fight with me on an old blog post. We went back and forth a little bit, and then he decided he’d been out of line and apologized to me. We got to talking more sanely after that, and now Jake R is one of my BFFs. And it started because he was a jerk he apologized.
Offer to help people when you think you can be of help, or just in a general way.
Writers need editors and prereaders. Groups need people willing to sort stories or organize contests or events, and the people running those things often need judges or people to come up with prizes or someone to help get the word out. Making yourself useful to people is a great way to make friends, so if you hear that someone (or a group) you’re interested in being friends with is working on something, letting them know you’d like to help is a great way to make an introduction or a stronger connection.
Even if there’s nothing going on that you know of, a PM or post letting someone know that if something comes up in the future you’d like to be involved at least puts your name out there, and you might luck into something that hasn’t been announced yet.
Keep in mind that this, along with the next suggestion, is most likely to work if you’ve been doing everything else on this list. If people have seen you around, and know that you’re involved and seem smart and nice, they’re way more likely to accept an offer or request than if they have no idea who you are.
Ask politely for help, and don't take it personally if an acquaintance doesn't have time to help, or doesn't think they can offer help with that project.
Oddly, people tend to like people they do favors for as much as people who do favors for them (if not more.) It’s flattering, and makes them feel like now you can help them. So it’s actually not a bad idea to go to someone about prereading for you, or reading and commenting on your fic, or helping with a group or contest or collab you’re putting together.
They key here is to be polite, both in asking and if they say they can’t help. Obviously this means staying nice and friendly in language and tone, but there are also some (apparently, from my experience) less obvious aspects, too.
First, if it’s not immediately obvious, I think it’s polite to let someone know why you’re asking them. If you ask me to look at your TwiJack fic, or help with your new Applejack group, I can figure it out. But if I don't know you, and you’re asking me to read your Lyra Adventure fic, I start to wonder if you picked my name randomly, and it signals at least a lack of care, if not blatant attention whoring. So you asked me to read that because you have a romance subplot and want to know what I think, or because Applejack is a major side character, or you want to know what I think of what you did with unicorn culture, let me know. The same goes for whatever reason you chose to ask someone else.
Next, be upfront about what you expect. Go ahead and tell the person a reasonable amount about what the project is, and what you expect their role to be. Give a summary of the story if you want them to read or preread it. If the story you want them to look at is a long one, and you’re asking for help on a current chapter, have a summary or outline of the whole story so the person can catch up. If you’re working on a collab or group or contest, let the person know exactly what you have in mind. Sometimes people are happy to help, but they only have so much time, so they need to see what they’re getting into. Other times they might have a lot of projects but find this one so neat they’re willing to clear their schedule.
Finally, if you’re asking someone to edit or preread for you, get your story in the best condition you can first. I know that when someone sends me a link to a gdoc with red spellcheck lines squiggled all over it, and not on accented or pony words, it raises my hackles-- if you can’t be bothered to use spellcheck, I don’t know what I can do for your writing. Similarly, give it your own best once-over for grammar, weird sentences, and characterization. Sure, you need help, and that’s why you're asking, but you want to make it clear that you’re asking for help, not someone to do the parts you don’t want to do.
Doing those things may or may not get you a bunch of followers. But I can almost promise it will get you a bunch of friends who will be smart and interesting and happy to support you and help you. And that’s what you need to improve your writing, editing, or organizing skills, and/or your general experience in fandom.
Plus, it'll save some time when Nightmare Moon comes back.
Since this is a Monday blog post, which I hope to do on more Mondays now that Trixie has a bedtime, here's a thank you to my recent subscribers: bats, nemopemba, diremane, First_Down, sopchoppy, Bradel, stormgnome, jlm123hi, Ultiville, Singularity Dream, JetstreamGW, Noble Thought, horizon, Sharp Spark, Applejinx, Mermerus, Super Trampoline, Quill Scratch, Peregrine Caged, BlazzingInferno, Not Worthy, and Jake the Army Guy. (And someone else whose username I don’t have yet. If you’re not on here and you’re giving me money, PM me!)
If you want to see your name in links, or get other fabulous prizes, check out this post for information on how to subscribe: Subscription Info.
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Good advice all around.
To further support your central point: my number came out to be 59,322 when I crunched it out a few days ago, and Ferret and I talked at the time about how we both reached that tally in the exact same way. I've been very fortunate in the sense that I started working with Equestria Daily very early in its lifespan and that I've been a fairly cheap train ride away from Bronycon ever since it moved to Baltimore, but there are tons of ways to network within the writing world--on FIMFic and beyond--that don't require a dime. Getting into touch and working with large groups and/or users not only exposes you to a breadth of experience and skill, but also fosters a network of support that's willing and able to help you in all areas, not necessarily just writing. I know that's the best thing that's come out of this whole trip through horsedom for me.
also seconding the part about entering into contests because that's 90% of why I have anything close to a good reputation
Or at least try to be user-friendly...
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As a fairly antisocial person who's just here to have fun and post random stories about cartoon horses, I'm not going to pretend this blog post is going to change anything. At its core, it just enforces the Golden Rule of Life: don't be a jerk.
That said, you do make some very good points, and if I were a networking guy, I would probably want to shake you by the hand right now. I especially like the point about not making enemies, because I recently acquired a narcissist with several hundred followers as a follower, and this post has given me a very compelling reason not to state my mind.
Thank you.
3345456
"Look, I'm just saying, if Nightmare Moon comes back on your watch? We're fucked."
Looking at my followers and their follower counts, that was a larger number than I was expecting. No real memory of who some of them are or why they're following me, so I suspect some of these counts are a bit time dependant. A follower with a thousand followers who hasn't been active for a couple years is probably in some vague way less meaningful than a currently active user with a couple hundred.
I'm not sure how meaningful the numbers are, but I like statistics, so I added up a couple of them. My personal number, with 248 followers, seems to be 30,181. Elric of Melnipony, who has 244 followers, has a number of 32, 866. SweetAI Belle, with her 145 followers, managed 23,915, and scoots2, who has 388 followers, had a number of 23,020.
I'm not terribly sure how much any of this means, though.
--arcum42
This is a really insightful post, thank you for this.
What gets me is that we even have a site like this. It's designed from the ground up for friendship, conversation and networking.
We have the ability to both follow and be followed. There are individual groups that can be joined for discussion on particular topics. We can keep public or private bookshelves of things we've loved. We can write blog posts about whatever we would like. Each individual user page can be custom configured for whatever they would like it to be. And there's even a PM system.
This is above and beyond for a site that is meant to allow people to read stories. And at the end of the day, FiMfiction is more of a writers social network than a fanfiction site.
Another question that comes to mind, I wonder about the absolute number of users represented by some of these follower of follower counts. Ferret's grand total is 60,090, but I bet there's a certain amount of overlap between the different pools of followers.
3345484
What it comes down to, really, is how much more social capital you have then you appear to have. People with more capital will have an easier time getting the "best" editors, publicizing their fics (look at the recent push for xjuggarnaughtx's most recent fic-- he doesn't have many followers himself, but his number was in the high 30,000s. Getting Skeeter the Lurker to signal boost him got his fic out to several times his actual follower count, on top of timely reviews by Titanium Dragon and Present Perfect,) getting good authors to be involved in contests, etc. For people with high follower counts, you can see that capital, but there are a lot of people with fewer followers whose network can reach just as far.
I can agree with pretty much everything in this blog. I'm in a similar situation to ferret, with a total score of 52,115 with 0 hoerswerds
50k is a good number, I think.
3345521
I was actually rather bemused to see Skeeter the Lurker, Manes, and Skywriter all signal boosting that fic within a day or so. I can see your point, though I have to think there'd be an awful lot of overlap between those followers. And, of course, there's followers like "A Follower", who is banned, but has 694 followers...
--arcum42
3345544
3345521 disclosure: I organized that lovefest for Juggers as a response to this blog: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/505509/time-to-face-reality-angst-ahoy But his friendship capital is what allowed me to do so. Also his wife makes excellent chili.
Incidentally, one other thing worth mentioning:
Promote stories you like yourself.
Don't be shy about it. If you really like a story that someone wrote, blog about it. Not only can it spark a discussion with folks, get you on the City of Doors reviewer list, and start a conversation with the writer of the piece... but it is just a nice thing to do.
Doing nice things for people is nice. And even if you don't have all that many followers, it is still a nice gesture, and even just directing a few people in a different direction can make a big difference. For example, Cerulean Voice reviewed Moose Mage's Those Who Live Forever, which made a couple dozen people look at it, and the story went from 6 to 11 upvotes. But one of those people who took a look at it was me, and I recommended it, and it went from 11 to 50 upvotes and got 150 views in 3 days - enough to put it into the popular stories box, which probably contributed a good chunk of those views.
Not every thing you do is going to make a difference, but sometimes a little nudge at the right time can make a huge difference in outcome for other peoples' stories. Indeed, one of the impetuses for my "Read It Now" reviews was the realization that reviewing a story in the first day and giving it +40 views could be the bump something good needs to make the featured story box sometimes.
3345456 Yeah, bah, friends, who needs 'em.
pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw9047-Silly_Pants.png
I think an awful lot of this happens more or less when you're minding your own business writing funny stories and commenting on stuff. Some of the biggest, saddest train wrecks come from people trying to be popular just to be popular. That just seems to make people sad and angry.
Rarity isn't just a pony everypony should know because she knows Princess Celestia. She's the Element of Generosity. She has something to offer.
Tangent: if you're ever on your way to a polo match and stressing out because you have no idea what to wear to a polo match, hum a few bars of "Becoming Popular." I guarantee that it will give you the giggles.
3345521 Apparent social capital can be tricky, though (see: "biggest, saddest train wrecks.") Sometimes people become convinced that their whole lives writing horse words, and therefore their whole lives, rest on the whims of a few callous people. And that's just not true.
Also, there are a few instances when being friends isn't always a good idea. It's possible to acquire stalkers, for instance, and in that case, I think it's ok to say, "no, I do not wish to be your friend."
3345732
Or maybe not-so-good, in your opinion. I seem to recall your reaction to Icky-Sicky Pinkie Pie was "Eh..." at best, but it was at least one of the contributing factors to finally getting a fic of mine featured. Other things helped: fic length, cover art, a decent start that got it in the popular box, probably more advertising than I've ever done... but your review undoubtedly contributed, and it might have been what put me over the top (the last fic I'd written before that peaked at eight-hottest, one off of the box). So thanks for that, I guess. Feels kind of weird giving someone credit for my popularity with a less-than-positive review, but there's a definite correlation, if not causation.
3345766
That's certainly what happened to me. Apart from hitting the feature box and talking to people on Skype, I don't think I could tell you why half the people on my follower list decided to follow me. I could point out a few and state that I definitely got them from a comment section somewhere, but I couldn't remember the specifics, and I couldn't even guess at most of the remainder. There must be at least a dozen or so that I never figured out the reason for the follow.
I'm pretty sure networking just means "make friends with people so you can use them later". :/
The dark side of this advice is people taking it to heart too well, and expanding passive-aggressive clique-culture that's already got its nasty wiggly bits deep into this community.
3345766
I think this is something that's totally a natural extension of having fun for you, and probably for many other folks. But I know there are some people for whom it doesn't come as naturally-- they look around at all of these people with lots of friends and don't really know where to start. Maybe they have a friend or two, but they still feel like they're on the outside. The internet isn't known for it's social butterflies. So I hoped this could help a few of them and give them some ideas of places to get started, or new directions to try.
How tangled in horsewords you want your life to be seems to me to be a question of how you're happy. There are folks who take things too seriously, sure, and there are also folks who don't have a lot else going on in their life, and being involved here is actually the best thing they've got going. And in terms of the latter, it's no different from any job or hobby-- there are cliques, there's politics, there's unfairness. There are also a lot of good people doing good work and having fun.
On top of that, and I might be getting a little optimistic here, but I honestly think that if you're interested in going into writing or editing professionally, we have something special going on here. We have some amazing writers and editors here, some of them have already been published professionally, and a lot of younger people learning from them and making friends. I think more than one person on this site will be published in the next ten years, and that maybe FimFiction could become a name like the Inklings, where writers exchanged ideas and honed their skills, and helped each other to write great original fiction. Networks like this are pretty common, in SF&F writing at least, and I really think some of the people here have the talent and the resources to be great, in part because of the time they spend here. This has nothing to do with onsite followers or popularity, but it has a lot to do with knowing and learning from the right people.
And in terms of Problem Friendships and how to deal with them, that's another lesson. I've never known anyone to get stalkery here on the site, but I do know a lot of people who fall into geek social fallacies.
3346084
Nope! Actually, if you want to get down to it, networking means "make friends so they will be happy to let you use them later." And since they're, ya' know, friends, you will be happy to be used by them in turn.
The only thing that makes networking any different from just making friends is you're doing it with an eye towards what the two of you could offer each other. And since you never really know that-- anyone could be a day away from that great idea that you would really want to be involved in-- it comes down to making friends in areas that you're interested in or working in. As I pointed out to Scoots2 above, writing in general and SF&F writing in particularly has a history of groups of writers who share thoughts on writing, and edit and preread for each other, and some of them have turned out several successful authors. There's nothing dirty about wanting to be friends with people who can help you improve yourself.
I feel I ought to point out I made friends first and then later joined EQD, SA etc. i was an editor and active commenter and met most of those folks before then ^^;
3346193
I really can't separate the concept from notions of deceit. It's not what friendship is supposed to be about, you shouldn't have a reward or eye towards benefit when befriending someone. Or maybe it's just because I'm no use to anyone, so networking for me is a one-way street.
I think about this a lot. It bothers me. :(
3345652 And I appreciate it, though I think some of the other members of this site did not. Eh, what are you gonna do, though? It was a nice gesture.
That's kind of the funny thing about writing here. It think it feels counter-intuitive for the commonly introverted nerd/artist types that gravitate to something like fanfiction. They think, or at least I thought, "Oh, this will be a good way for me to get some attention/feedback and practice something useful." Then you put out stories, but then stand off to the side of things with this confused look on your face as the general fandom ignores what you think is good and spends their energy on something that seems generic or subpar. It feels like you shouldn't have to interact that much as a writer, but it's often times more important than the stories themselves.
From what I can see, Fimfiction is generally into immediacy. They like short fics that they can read right now. They like active users that can answer their forum post right now. They want their chapter updates right now. If you can provide that with at least some level of quality, you will go far. I would wager that half of my followers came from Cheerilee's Thousand because I used to update it quite often. They liked that it hit their feed regularly and that it would only take a quick five minutes to have a satisfying fic experience.
If you are active in stories and/or forums, it feeds that immediacy, which in turn feeds your followership. Pump out stories on the regular, and you'll get followers who are still active. The more active users upvote more frequently, and you get more visibility, and more followers. Repeat.
3346295
I agree with everything except the idea that PP is useless, because that is ridiculous and false. You are a wonderful
ponyperson.At the end of the day this is a fun game, but I don't really know what the metric means. I'm sure trying to assess my popularity by any means other than "how many ponies do my stories reach" is the wrong way to think about online friendships and interests, and depression aside, I don't have any motivation to be "popular".
Weird as it sounds, it's really all about the stories for me. I follow you if I like what you do, and I hope ponies follow me because-and-only-because they like what I contribute, and so-and-only-so more ponies might have an opportunity to enjoy my stories that way.
3346295
I suspect that this is where the problem is. Everything you know about being a good friend, and I know you know it because you've watched a show about it for over a hundred episodes, is useful. And the people who value that will be happy to help you, you aren't stealing anything from them, they're your friends.
It happens that you, specifically, do lots of other things that you can use to help people who are good friends to you (and it's worrying that you don't see that,) but even if you didn't what I said would be true.
I measure my Fimfic success by how often I'm able to make smarmy comments.
(Sometimes I'll figure out how to say something nice to someone, and that's good too.)
3346295
If you're not really making friends with them, just using them, yeah, that's a bad thing. But there's nothing wrong with wanting to be friends with someone because they're a cool person. The thing is, its just like any other friendship; you need to be giving them something that makes it worthwhile for them to add you to their monkeysphere.
Also, a lot of networking is more about laying the groundwork for potential friendships than actually making friends, in my eyes; being on friendly terms with people lets friendships grow naturally. I don't think you can actually force a healthy friendship to form if you're just trying to use somebody, because you don't really care about them, just what they can do for you.
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Here's an example: Deceitfully abusing our friendship would be me exploiting the fact that we've hung out on Ponychan and at cons, and using it to guilt trip you into editing a fic for me.
Friendship would be you giving honest consideration to editing a Twilestia fic, because it's your friend's fic and you genuinely wish to see it do well.
Deceitfully abusing our friendship would be me leveraging this as a sappy example about friendship, to guilt trip you into editing a fic for me. :v
As far as rating metrics for a writer's quality go, that's going to be fairly unbalanced for people like Pen Stroke or RainbowBob since there aren't many users who can outrank them.
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Yes, it has a peak at around 500 followers or so. The idea is that as your followers increase and your number decreases, it's pretty clear you have a lot of social capital-- people know you or have heard of you directly.
The number is most useful for how hooked in someone is who isn't well known. These people are probably doing something right, but not many people have noticed yet.
3346648 I've noticed quite a few productive users who are a bit lacking in the follower department. Manaphy, Tavi4, and especially Damien Darkside are just starting to come into their own as writers, and others like Pononimous and Foehn that are pretty much unnoticed.
You also have writers like Ricochet who only has 54 followers but still manages to rack up a score of 14,359.
Bookplayer:
3345484:
Me:
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You're a terrible person. :V This is why we're friends.
3346693 Applejinx originally called it a measure of how underrated you are: so Pen Stroke's score of zero means he is the least underrated writer on the site. Which is fair, to be honest.
As a measure of social capital; I'm not sold on it. I think you'd need to do a few more iterations - because that measure should give Skeeter some huge number but for some reason also give Bad Horse a surprisingly good one.
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Like I said, I think it works as a measure of non-apparent social capital. Once you're in the top 100 users or so, people assume you have social capital (and are typically right.) But the fewer followers you have, the more accurately this number tells how far you're actually reaching.
I actually don't like it as a measure of how underrated someone is, because while that makes sense in the top numbers, the lower you get the more likely you just haven't been noticed by the right people. That would make someone amazing with a follower count of 0 who joined the site yesterday the most underrated, but obviously their followers-of-followers number wouldn't reflect that.
I'm confused where the follower counts are supposed to play into this. You're absolutely right that being successful (in any career or any hobby), has everything to do with networking, who you're friends with, who you can get help from. And you're right that networking has everything to do with being socially active, generally pleasant to be around, and (at least around a place like this) producing work of a consistent quality. Networking is one of those things that you don't realize how important it is until you need it and don't have it. It's a sad day when you really have to bust your ass to find three relevant references to put down on an application, or even worse, track down to beg for a letter of recommendation. It's too bad fimfic doesn't have an open bar. Open bars are the best opportunity to make acquaintances, exchange information, learn what's going on in your field. I once got a chance to spend an hour drinking wine with Dorothy Allison after a reading, and from that one conversation I'm pretty sure I got all the best writing advice I've ever received.
So, yeah, networking is important. But I'm not sure where the follower numbers are supposed to fit in here. I get that in theory someone who has lots of friends of friends has been successfully networking, but I don't think it works in practice. I did the math, and my number ended up just being a little higher than yours. I don't do any kind of networking, and I'm certain I don't have anywhere near the 'social capital' that you do. Those two numbers being so close is either an outlier or a flaw, or something else.
Reading through the comments, looks like this is making sense for some people, though. I don't know. I'm skeptical.
Here's a problem with that:
I've got 1,040 followers, a very nice round number. That makes me the 130th most followed author on the site; again, a very nice, neat number.
What that means, though, is that of the 190,000 people registered on this site, the only way to add to that score is from 129 of them, and just because one of my followers has thousands more than me, doesn't mean I respect him more than I respect, say, maskedferret, who is fantastic for the reasons mentioned.
It seems amusing to me that the higher your follower count, the harder it is to play this little game. It means that though ColdInGardez and I follow each other, it's far more significant to me than it... is... to... him...
Wow. That... actually makes a hell of a lot of sense, come think...
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I'd avoid falling into that pitfall if I were you. Just because someone is well known as a writer doesn't mean that they don't enjoy reading as well. For all you know, he may well find your works as entertaining as I have, and in some small way has come to admire you. Your following him may well be just as significant to him as him following you is to yourself.
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Except, y'know, that pesky Writeoff Association where about half the big names that follow you even learned of your existence. Had you not interacted with them there, many would never have taken notice of your writing or had an opportunity to recognize your skills as a writer. If that isn't good networking, then I don't know what is. Silly. :P
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Raising some fair points, here. This is one particular metric of interest, but it's important to realize its limitations. For instance, we're looking at Ferret's score of 60,000, we're saying "wow, she deserves more followers!", yet when we look at her follower count of 159, that's not supposed to imply that getting followed by / networking with her / having her as a friend isn't a great deal. And sure you could argue "well but if her follower count was as high as it should be, then it would correctly measure her awesomeness, and she'd be a valuable addition in this system then," but that really starts to imply some uncomfortable meritocracy stuff, as if your follower count measured your value, which clearly isn't true.
The way I look at this score is simply as a sphere of influence. If I did something neat and my friends went to blog about them, what kind of quantity could I be reblogged to? (While the score deliberately doesn't compensate for duplicates, I see this as the angle of "If a friend reblogs me something, I'll consider it. If five of my friends reblog something, you've got my attention.")
This strongly echoes advice I've read elsewhere about how to network with other professional authors, but I have a suspicion that you knew that already
… and I couldn't resist figuring out my own score: 23,579
I'm both surprised by the number and by how many people follow me, no matter if their own follower count is 3000 or 0.
Note to self: don't screw up
That's a really good way to look at followers. It really gave me a boost of confidence, thank you.
I've got a reach of 18,054, with about 2,000 more if you count people who aren't around anymore (Eris, Absolutel Anonymous).
I feel like I've known all this for years, but as a introverted person by nature, I find all of this very hard. The Writeoff Assocition, and all you guys there, are really the only friends I've ever had in my four years writing. Doesn't feel great. I'll keep trying, though.
I have 37 watchers now.
Though, it's mostly from just talking to people and watching them because I thought they were cool.
I'm not very good at writing.